Communications and advocacy specialist for the East Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) Justin Mahimbo has said journalists are key in the fight against Tuberculosis (TB).
He was speaking on Thursday in Johannesburg, South Africa during the opening of a two-day media capacity building training.
Mahimbo challenged the scribes to do more on information dissemination on the spread and prevention of Tuberculosis in the mining sector.
Further, Mahimbo said media plays a critical role in information dissemination and hence the need to have their journalism skills enhanced with modern health reporting mechanisms.
“Media is a key stakeholder in awareness creation, sensitization and drive the TB agenda for a thorough fight,’’ said Mahimbo
The two-day meeting has drawn together over 30 Journalists from 13 countries in the three regions including Malawi.
Among other critical issues under discussion are progress made in the TB in the Mining sector in the Southern African region phase 3, funding and challenges as the project is phasing out in 2024.
According to research done by the World Health Organization WHO, the prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis is high among both artisanal and formal miners than in the general population a development which calls for more measures to fight the disease from the mining sector side.
Tuberculosis in the mining sector has long been recognized as a problem in the southern Africa including Malawi hence the signing of a declaration in TB in the Mining Sector TIMS in 2012.
With the formation of a regional coordination mechanism, two phases of the TB in the mining sector have been implemented with the third launched last year still under implementation in 16 countries in the region with the sole purpose of mitigating the disease among both formal and artisanal mine workers who are susceptible due to the working conditions.
It is estimated that 8 SADC member states; Angola, DRC, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Tanzania are among the 30 countries globally with high TB burden.
The TIMS project is also a response to the World Health Organization WHO’s call for countries to end Tuberculosis by 2030 as a global public health challenge.
